A limited-edition 18-carat gold phone aimed at Moscow’s fashion-forward elite has just been designed by Danish retailer, Aesir. It’s price tag? $57,400. The phone, which took three years to develop, doesn’t boast email, games, a camera or even GPS, it only boasts solid goldness. Or does that not satisfy you? The company founder, Thomas Jensen, subtly calls it ‘not a play thing’.

“It’s a collector’s item. People are used to collecting, say, watches, while designer phones is a practically empty niche,” he also said in an interview wit Reuters.

The firm will now be designing a new phone every 18 months, with the hopes of pawning them off on the recent boom in stylish Russians. Or as Mathias Rajani, Aesir’s chief commercial officer puts it:

“Moscow is becoming a booming contemporary art city. At first people here had only money but now they have style. Their spending is more intellectual and sophisticated.”

Because smart people have solid gold phones.

The ‘blocky’ phone, designed by Yeves Behar, has investors like the owner of toymaker Lego behind it, among many other rich Russian families.

Luxury market analyst, Natalia Legotina, sees Aesir’s design as an alternative to high-end, gem-encrusted mobiles by Nokia’s British mobile subsidiary Vertu, which go for $6,500 to $72,500. And, while not denying that Russia’s rich will shell out, she doubts the phones would become collector’s items, saying that the cultural elite prefer new smart phones.

She added that:

‘It will interest Russian Oligarchs and their girlfriends as well as businessmen whose social circles demand accessories that act as class indicators.”

Don’t listen to her. Nothing soothes your fashion woes like a solid gold phone guys.

Start saving.

[Source: news24]